So, ARs are universally "cheap." Their ownership needs to be "justified." They're "SHIT unless you need to kill people," which naturally makes them a terrible choice for "self defence." You either don't know what "semi-automatic" means, or you're appallingly ignorant of gun regulations.

What made you think you're "part of the gun crowd," or even qualified to have an opinion? If you actually do own a firearm, you should be ashamed of not knowing the laws you're supposed to be following.

And that is exactly why you could film a new Oz film, just as long as nothing's called "Oz."

You're right; my biases got the better of me. Disney was making another Oz movie, and, in a refreshing change of pace, Warner was being a jerk.

You still have to be very careful with things that are in the public domain. Reprints of images from the movie posters (now in the public domain) were found to be infringing, and Warner thinks it's entitled to a trademark on anything involving the word "Oz."

While that's true in theory, you're forgetting that copyright law exists only to benefit Disney. The Wizard of Oz is also in the public domain, but Oz the Great and Powerful needed Disney lawyers on set to approve what shade of green they painted the witch.

If you had the audacity to attempt filming a Snow White movie without the Mouse's explicit, written consent, their legal team would relish driving you to bankruptcy--even though you'd be perfectly within your rights.

Do you mean to tell me that Canadians buy homes from cash on hand?

That might have something to do with the fact that most Canadian homes don't cost over a million dollars.

I think Boston is America's Madagascar.

You're comparing three minutes of frivolous background noise to the written word as if they were of equivalent value?

Seriously?

This really is a problem, though. I used to do phone interviews for my employer, but I stopped after a couple of months. It's really, really awkward to try to interview someone you simply cannot understand, no matter how many times they repeat themselves.

You and people like you have done far more damage to this country than any terrorist could ever hope to achieve.

We are being robbed. We need to base our prices on the human effort required for extraction, processing, and distribution.

Why would we do that? Say I'm in the market for a beverage to go with my "generic Happy Meal." I can get one from the generic McDonald's for $1, or from home for no additional cost. Why would I give you more for a bucket of well water, even if drawing that bucket involved an prodigious amount of "human effort" on your part?

Or, say I want to mail a package. The post office will deliver it for $12.95, and Fed Ex for $16. Why would I pay you any more for the same? Even if you run a mayan courier service, and there's an equally prodigious amount of "human effort" involved in travelling from New York to China by foot, I'm entirely unwilling to pay you extra for lacking a boat.

You claim we're getting "robbed," but what you're proposing instead is far worse.

It's great for what it is. The healthcare industry uses it heavily because 1) it's cheaper to deploy a thousand thin clients than a thousand Dell boxxen 2) the thin clients are more likely to fit into a cramped nurses' station, and 3) running the application remotely means no PHI is sitting on a public-facing terminal, and 4) it's easier to manage and update a handful of Citrix servers.

But, the man's dead, and you're posting shit like "SuckTricks." If you're the age your UID implies and that's the full extent of your mental capacity, you might be clinically retarded.

Except he doesn't give two shits about trolls. He's worried about fanboys:

His point is that fanboys take as a given that their favorite software is perfect, and then engage in rabid apologetics to justify their position. In the face of change, they will quite literally invent reasons as to why their worldview is still correct.

Put another way: To someone who thinks "GNOME rocks => KDE sucks", nothing you can do to KDE will change their mind--it's still not GNOME, therefore it still sucks, and they'll create another justification as to why that is, forever and ever.

Since whatever purported problem isn't a real flaw, and fixing it won't make the fanboy happy, fretting over their posts is probably the worst thing you can do as a developer. And if listening to a fanboy can only do you harm, why let them derail all discussion and rob you of your chance to hear from those who can help you?

TL;DR--fanboys don't help discussion, and that's a problem if you depend on that discussion. It's not just butthurt.

At the very least account authorizations required for performing changes on production devices should require someone in house approve that authentication

I work for the "vendor" side of the equation. If we make any changes to a customer system outside this explicit, per-case authorization, we lose any limitations on liability. If we caused a downtime like in TFA, we'd be liable for up to $infinity in lost revenue, overtime, and other damages.

As Rusty says, OP absolutely, positively needs to have a change control process with teeth if it's not followed. If his organization's support contract lets the vendor off the hook for this, they got taken for an expensive ride.

With computer monitors, you're generally paying a premium for better input latencies, refresh rates, color reproduction, and ghosting. $5,000 is still on the high side, but I'd be extremely wary about replacing my monitor with a television, sight unseen.